prudence, confined himself to threatening movements, which did not
exactly hit. He saw evidently that he could not swallow him whole,
and what might ensue from trying him piecemeal he wisely forbore to
essay.

Hum had his own favourite places and perches. From the first day he
chose for his nightly roost a towel-line which had been drawn across
the corner over the wash-stand, where he every night established
himself with one claw in the edge of the towel and the other clasping
the line, and, ruffling up his feathers till he looked like a little
chestnut-burr, he would resign himself to the soundest sleep. He did
not tuck his head under his wing, but seemed to sink it down between
his shoulders, with his bill almost straight up in the air. One
evening one of us, going to use the towel, jarred the line, and soon
after found that Hum had been thrown from his perch, and was hanging
head downward, fast asleep, still clinging to the line. Another
evening, being discomposed by somebody coming to the towel-line after
he had settled himself, he fluttered off; but so sleepy that he had
not discretion to poise himself again, and was found clinging, like a
little bunch of green floss silk, to the mosquito netting of the
window.

A day after this we brought in a large green bough, and put it up
over the looking-glass. Hum noticed it before it had been there five
minutes, flew to it, and began a regular survey, perching now here,
now there, till he seemed to find a twig that exactly suited him; and
after that he roosted there every night. Who does not see in this
change all the signs of reflection and reason that are shown by us in
thinking over our circumstances, and trying to better them? It
seemed to say in so many words: "That towel-line is an unsafe place